At The Acting Company's Masquerade Gala on November 14 at Capitale, Brian Stokes Mitchell and Joseph Benincasa, Chairman and President respectively of The Actors Fund, will accept the Joan Warburg Humanitarian Award honoring the Fund's extraordinary legacy of providing health and human services to the entertainment community since 1882. James Bundy, Dean of Yale School of Drama and Artistic Director of Yale Repertory Theatre, will receive the John Houseman Award recognizing his profound commitment to the development of classical actors and a national audience for the theater. David Hyde Pierce and Charles S. Dutton will present the awards; the Godspell cast will entertain and Acting Company Alumnus Hamish Linklater (Seminar) emcees the evening for an industry-filled audience of producers, directors, entertainers and other notables including The Honorable Thomas Kean, legendary record producer Clive Davis, New York Times writer Enid Nemy and The Broadway League's Charlotte St. Martin. For ticket Information call: 212-258-3111 .
For almost 130 years, The Actors Fund has been the safety net for professionals-performers and those behind the scenes-in film, theatre, television, music, opera, radio and dance in need, crisis or transition. With offices in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, it provides direct services to 12,000 people each year and hundreds of thousand online. "The Actors Fund," according to Margot Harley, Producing Artistic Director of The Acting Company, "is the perfect recipient of the Joan Warburg Humanitarian Award named for a woman deeply involved in dozens of projects for the betterment of mankind." Previous recipients include Martin Segal, Harry Belafonte, Gerald Schoenfeld, Phyllis Newman, William Zabel, Abigail Disney and Tom Viola.
James Bundy, former Associate Producing Director of The Acting Company, became head of Yale School of Drama and Yale Rep less than 10 years ago, during which he has produced more than twenty world, American, and regional premieres, two of which have been Pulitzer Prize finalists. Previous Houseman Award recipients include Joe Papp, Harold Prince, Bernard Gersten, Michael Kahn, Kevin Kline, Marian Seldes, Tony Randall, Zelda Fichandler, Julie Harris and Jack O'Brien.
Founded by Oscar winner John Houseman and current Producing Artistic Director Margot Harley in 1972, The Acting Company is America's leading and most honored touring repertory theater having reached 3.5 million people in 48 states and 10 foreign countries with 136 classic and new works. Kevin Kline, Patti LuPone, Rainn Wilson, Jeffrey Wright, Jesse L. Martin, Frances Conroy, Keith David, Hamish Linklater, Harriet Harris and David Ogden Stiers are but a few who began their careers on tour with The Acting Company, which was honored by the Tony Awards for Excellence in Theater. The Company will present Julius Caesar and The Comedy of Errors on its 39th National Tour beginning at the renowned Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis in January and reaching New York in April for mainstage productions and, again, in May presenting student matinees at the Clark Studio Theater at Lincoln Center.
